mbs - viva energy senior leadership program workshop 3 ... · mbs - viva energy senior leadership...

MBS EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

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MBS - Viva Energy Senior Leadership Program – Workshop 3: Shaping Culture Run Sheet: High Level Overview: Overall Program Objectives:

Lead and implement organisational strategy.

Build innovative entrepreneurial and commercial behaviour.

Build a values-based collaborative culture.

Lead sustainable change.


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MBS - Viva Energy Senior Leadership Program – Workshop 3: Shaping Culture Workshop 3, Shaping Culture | Learning Outcomes: Overall objective: Build a values-based collaborative culture. As a result of this workshop leaders will be more able to:

Utilise personal leadership capabilities and values as a foundation for effective business results

Develop team performance through building a culture of inspiration and collaboration

Build engaged and collaborative relationships with customers, internal and external stakeholders Resources/Tools Checklist for Workshop:

Data projector and computer

Butchers paper and markers

Additional space and chairs

Flip charts x 4

OHS video

Impact surveys


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MBS - Viva Energy CULTURE WORKSHOP – Day 1 Learning Outcomes:

Utilise personal leadership capabilities and values as a foundation for effective business results


Key Content Areas:

Organisational Culture

Leadership, identity and culture

Authentic Leadership and Values

Reflective leadership practice

Organisational and personal resilience Key Frameworks/Models:

Edgar Schein – Organisational Culture

The Leadership Circle

Leadership Culture Survey (TLC)

Carol Dweck – Learning Mindsets

Chris Argyris – Double Loop Learning

Irvin Yalom – Interpersonal Here-and-Now Learning

Meg Wheatley – Above and Below the Line

Robert Fritz – Outcome Creation/Problem Maintenance Cycle

Ralph Stacey – Complex Adaptive Systems

Heifetz and Linksy – Adaptive Leadership Resources/Tools Checklist:




Flip charts x 4

OHS video


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Indicative Run Sheet – Day 1

Start Time

Elapsed Time

Topic & Session Aim Activities & Content ** Linkages to other sessions/activities/content

Processes & Resources

Facilitators and what transpires

9.00am

90mins Program Reconnect and sharing learning from the Customer-Centric Innovation Experience

Day 1 focus: To gain a shared understanding of organisational ‘culture’ and unpack together some of the broad cultural assumptions that might exist at VIVA, so collectively they can influence this.

Reconnection to the group and facilitators.

Program overview – content and process: • Provide an overview of the workshop and its objectives, and where it sits in the overall

program journey

• Refresh participants of key learning frameworks – Growth mindset and double loop learning

and invite participants to share how they think approaching the module with these in mind

might influence the culture

• Remind participants of the personal energy morning sessions and the purpose of journal and

workbook

• Discuss safety procedures, Chatham House Rules and amenities.

• Offer that they have an opportunity to explore and further shape the culture of VIVA here

together in the room over the next two days, as this entire group of senior leaders will be

representative of the culture and subcultures of the organisation as a whole.

Sharing our learning from the Customer-centric Innovation Experience

Invite participants to get into their Action Learning Groups (ALG) from the inter-module

experience and briefly convene around the task of how they will share with the rest of

the group something of their experience.

Introduce them to the Wheatley ‘above and below the green line’ framework, perhaps

with the lens of the ‘what’ being above and the ‘how’ (perhaps at some level indicative

of organisational culture) being below, and how important ‘below’ can be in leading

through complexity. Have them prepare to share:

o The challenge, insights, ideas and your experiment (at a high level)

o Progress that was made, and the status of it now

OHS video ? Flipchart paper and markers PP objectives Growth Mindset and Double Loop PP Journal Above and Below the Line PP or whiteboard


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Have each ALG present their learning to the rest of the group, and invite the others to

inquire, be curious and share their reflections. This is an opportunity for everyone to

learn from each other’s experiences, rather than ‘judging’ or critiquing.

10.30am 15mins Morning Tea

10.45am 1h 45m What is culture and how do we influence it?

What is culture and how do we influence it? (15 minutes): Share Schein model to demonstrate that organisational culture is a complex concept which requires careful consideration. There are many definitions out there, here are just a couple:

1. Schein refers to organisational culture as the “basic assumptions that a given group has

invented, discovered, or developed in learning to cope with its problems of external

adaptation and internal integration, and that have worked well enough to be considered

valid, and, therefore, to be taught to new members as the correct way to perceive, think,

feel in relation to those problems.” (1971)

2. Jinette de Gooijer suggests: “A common metaphor for describing organisational culture is to say it is like an iceberg. On the surface are the things easily observed – physical workplace, the way people dress, the language used, who interacts with whom, what gets said and what does not get said, office rituals – these and other symbols communicate the visible manifestations of organisational culture. These visible phenomena include organisational statements (such as vision, mission, values, goals, strategies), and the technical systems (plans, policies, structures, processes, services, products and technologies) for executing the primary task of the organisation. However, the deeper aspects of organisational culture are below the surface, the assumptions, beliefs and values which influence people’s behaviour and their responses to stresses and anxieties in the workplace.” (2012)

Ensure understanding of the terms assumptions, beliefs and values by giving an example from your corporate experience and then get the group to generate one or two possibilities for Viva.

(15 minutes): If we use this model as a way of thinking about VIVA, identify in small groups the following:

a. What artefacts would someone who’d never been to VIVA before be struck by?

Edgar Schein – Culture PP

Iceberg PP


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What values are espoused at VIVA Energy, and the same new person experience

them?

b. What behaviours might someone completely unfamiliar with VIVA bump into

that might talk to tacit, underlying assumptions about the ‘way things get done

here’?

(15 minutes): Facilitate a whole group conversation about what was discussed (20 minutes): Activity: What was the ‘culture’ you created in your ALG? Invite the ALGs from the intermodule activity to group, and invite them to reflect together on their group experience using the following questions (worksheet provided) which use the TLC as another lens to deepen our understanding of ‘culture’:

1. What was the primary focus of your ALG – collectively were you more focussed on getting the task achieved, or more so on how you would work together as people (your relationships)? How do you think this impacted the group experience?

2. Thinking about The Leadership Circle, what did you notice in the ALG of the entire group’s reactive tendencies? Was there any evidence of a tendency to control, comply, or protect in the group? What happened to trigger this reaction, and what was the impact?

3. As a group, which of the creative leadership dimensions (relating, self-awareness, authenticity, systems-awareness and achievement) do you think were expressed the most consistently? Think of examples of how this presented and the impact it had on your ALG as a whole.

Bring the group together and ask each ALG to share their experience of their group cultures. (30 minutes) (20 minutes): Whole group dialogue: Making sense and finding patterns or themes: Facilitate a debrief in the whole group once each ALG has shared, with the intention to think about patterns and themes that participants heard through the discussion. Capture these themes on a flipchart of whiteboard. (20 minutes): Small group work: Extract working hypotheses: Back in their table groups, invite participants now to turn their minds to what information this might give the group of senior leaders about the BASIC ASSUMPTIONS they might hold at VIVA.

LCS powerpoint

Participants will have named how they behaved with one another and named what type of culture that is creating.


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This is an opportunity to develop working hypotheses, rather than find the ‘right’ answers. Culture can be thought about as an adaptive challenge – so there are multiple truths and realities. Therefore, finding hypotheses that can be tested might be thought of as a more useful approach to making progress. Invite each table group to capture these working hypotheses, to be shared with the whole group before lunch.

** Additional activity to raise the heat (only if time permits, and facilitators feel the group is ‘ready’, will take between 20-40 minutes so would need to be accommodated): Now reflect on the group presentations by the other ALGs. If you were to use one word (a label) to describe the culture of the other groups, which word would describe each of them? Once each ALG has been ‘labelled’ explore the following in a whole group debrief:

- Why did you label the ALGs as you did? What did you see or experience that warranted that label?

- What was the impact on your group of being labelled as you were? - What data/information might this give you about the basic assumptions that exist in

the VIVA culture, and/or sub-cultures?

CAS, adaptive leadership

12.30pm 45mins Lunch

1.30pm 90mins

Culture at VIVA Energy – how are we reactive and creative?

(30 minutes): Given what we have begun to explore about the tacit assumptions that might exist in the culture and subcultures at VIVA, it might be worthy of our attention to consider some data here. Provide an overview of the Leadership Culture Survey (LCS) and how it aligns to TLC. Point out that it provides information about the desired versus actual culture, as perceived by respondents. As a whole group, invite participants to share where they feel there will be strengths (alignment) and potential gaps, and why. Share the LCS profile to the whole group. Allow some time to take in the information. Then share the high level engagement survey results. Allow time for them to make the connections between the two sets of data. (30 minutes): Invite participants to reflect in pairs (walk/talk) using the following questions:

PP LCS overview, and then VIVA LCS results. Engagement Survey Results PP


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- What do you notice about the LCS data presented – what are you struck by?

- What areas of the LCS point to key strengths and how might we as a leadership group

leverage these key cultural assets?

- Where are the differences or gaps between desired and actual? What might this tell us?

(30 minutes): Once back, invite the pairs to share their reflections with the whole group and how this information might confirm, build upon or work against the basic assumptions the whole group begun to wonder about in the morning.

3.00pm 15mins Afternoon Tea

3.15pm 1hr 15m

Authentic Leadership and Culture – the role of personal values How can we more intentionally bring the concept of ‘authentic leadership’ to life? Pre-reading?

(10 minutes): As a senior group of leaders at VIVA, you are likely to influence the culture greatly. People will be looking to you for indication of what is or isn’t acceptable. Whole group conversation: Consider the VIVA values in the light of the previous conversations; how do they support or contradict what we have been discussing? What might this tell us? Share model which places personal values at core, with beliefs sitting nearby. Organisational values are obviously useful guides, however, personal values tend to be what we rely upon in challenging or tricky circumstances. Reactive tendencies, i.e. the tendency to be compliant, controlling or self-protecting are usually displayed when we aren’t entirely anchored in our values (integrity is the measure that points to strong values based leadership, with courageous authenticity a close second). We are going to spend some time exploring our own personal values, and what informs them together this afternoon. (5 minutes): Activity: Beliefs Blueprint: Invite participants to quickly reflect together on their cultural heritage. Hand out the beliefs blueprint survey and read each, asking participants to stand if the ‘belief’ was present in their family when growing up. (60 minutes, 5 minutes set up, then 15 minutes per participant and 10 minutes for final reflections): Now invite participants to think about a significant, transformative, or shaping experience they’ve had in their life. Often our values are informed by such shaping experiences. Invite participants to form triads (ensuring a max of 1 ET members in a group), in order to share their stories about these experiences, using the following process:

Beliefs slides,

reactive and

creative slides

Handout –

Beliefs Blueprint

Slide with

details


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1. Participant tells the story of the shaping or transformative experience, and in what way

it shaped her/him, as well as what values emerged or were influenced by the experience.

2. Co-learners in triad use an inquiry process to explore the following:

a. How was this value present before this shaping experience, or not?

b. How does this value show up for you when you’re working at your best? How

might you use this value to inspire others?

c. When can this value work against you?

Once each participant has told their story and explored how the value works for them both creatively and reactively, invite participants to journal in order to reflect on any other values they’d like to explore more for themselves, either by thinking of other shaping experiences, or reflecting further on where key values they possess might come from.

4.30pm 15mins Resilience

Check in with your Energy Management partner. How have you been tracking with your top two

commitments? What are you noticing about your energy management today?

Resilience slide

4.45pm 45mins Peer Consulting Round 1 (?)

5.30pm 45mins Reflection

Culture might be thought of a large, nebulous beast, or something that might be influenced or contributed to in every interaction, one conversation at a time. Journal individually to begin with (15 minutes), and then reflect together in pairs (30 minutes) with the following questions:

1. How might your leadership assets (creative capabilities) be used to enhance the VIVA

culture? Think of specific interactions where you believe this could have an impact.

2. How might your personal reactive tendencies contribute to the VIVA culture and if so,

how?

Write reflective questions on flipchart or whiteboard Slides for day 1 to be uploaded to Thread

6.15pm CLOSE

7:00pm Dinner

Evening activity.

60mins Peer Consulting Rounds 2 and 3


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MBS - Viva Energy CULTURE WORKSHOP – DAY 2: Learning Outcomes:


Build engaged and collaborative relationships with customers, internal and external stakeholders

Key Content Areas:

Organisational Culture

Collaboration and organisational culture

Creative conversations – authenticity and integrity through challenge

Reflective leadership practice

Organisational and personal resilience Key Frameworks/Models:

Edgar Schein – Organisational Culture

The Leadership Circle

Leadership Culture Survey (TLC)

Carol Dweck – Learning Mindsets

Chris Argyris – Double Loop Learning

Irvin Yalom – Interpersonal Here-and-Now Learning

Meg Wheatley – Above and Below the Line

Robert Fritz – Outcome Creation/Problem Maintenance Cycle

Ralph Stacey – Complex Adaptive Systems

Heifetz and Linksy – Adaptive Leadership

Resources/Tools Checklist:




Flip charts x 4


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Indicative Run Sheet – Day 2

Start Time

Elapsed Time

Topic & Session Aim Activities & Content ** Linkages to other sessions/activities/content **

Processes & Resources

Facilitators and what transpires

7.00am 60mins Energy Management Practice

Group to self-organise their energy management practice individually or with each other OR attend the yoga session. Self-organised options include meditation practice, walks, reflective journaling etc.

30mins Breakfast/free time

8.30am 60mins Reflective Practice

Invite participants to reflect, first using their journal (15 minutes), and then together using the inner/outer circle method (45 minutes), with the following questions:

1. What are we noticing about the culture here between us as senior VIVA

leaders?

2. What might this tell us about the broader organisational culture at VIVA

Energy?

3. What impact might our consideration of these factors have on team and our

broader business performance? What impact might it have with customers,

and internal stakeholders?

Method guidelines:

The inner circle is the space for reflection together

The outer circle is a space to deeply listen on what is being offered

Every participant must reflect in the inner circle during the process

All chairs in the inner circle must be filled at all times

Rather than simply ‘taking it in turns’, it can be useful to try and build on one

another’s reflections in the inner circle, add to someone’s thoughts, or offer

a different perspective

Someone can be tapped in or out of the inner circle, if you have something

you’d really like to add to a conversation and are in the outer, but only tap

someone who has already finished sharing. Conversely, if you would really

like to hear from someone in the outer circle, tap them in (and take their

place in the outer circle)

Inner/Outer circle Cameron


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9.30am 60 mins Inspiring others through

Creative Conversations

(15 minutes): Set up: Introduce process for Creative Conversations, in the context of

influencing culture and inspiring others through every interaction. Reactivity is

triggered in us in relation to others (i.e. we become reactive due to a ‘hook’ or

button being pressed by someone or something). How we continue to engage in a

healthy, productive way during these times can have a huge influence on

organisational culture being experienced as higher integrity, more focussed on

achievement, and more inspiring.

Link back to the Fritz model – Outcome Creation vs. Problem Maintenance, and how

this maps against the top and bottom halves of the TLC. When we are operating

from the position of ‘outcome creation’ we are likely to be more inspiring as

leaders, and will create more productive, enjoyable outcomes. Remind participants

of the Leadership Circle overview, paying specific attention to the three reactive

tendencies. Explain that we have drafted specific scenarios that are likely to be

specific to the VIVA cultural context, and will be using these scenarios in a series of

‘Real Plays’.

Introduce the actors, and have the lead actor provide an overview of the process, with the facilitators present to answer any questions.

Ensure to highlight:

This is a chance to practice – so you can use time outs at any point

We will ask you if there are particular behaviours or reactive tendencies that

you’d as a leader would like to work on

Work with the information you’re given – each real play has a brief for

context

You don’t need to ‘act’ – just relax and be yourself, respond as you would

You don’t need to fill the space with words – be prepared to pause and think

about how you’re responding and what you’re saying

Outcome

Creation/Problem

Maintenance

slide


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There will then be a chance to ask any questions. The group will divide into

6 groups (of about 5 participants each), with one actor allocated per group.

The facilitators will spread their time across the two rooms, in order to

observe and collect data which might provide further information about basic

assumptions that might be at play in the VIVA context.

Have small groups move to syndicate rooms and commence Real Plays.

There will be approximately 20-25 minutes for each participant to engage with a Real

Play.

6 break-out

rooms

10.30am 15mins Morning Tea Break

10.45am

105mins Creative Conversations

(continued)

(Real Plays continue in syndicate rooms).

(30 minutes): Ask all groups and actors to be completed by 12 noon, so that the

whole group can reconvene in the main delivery room, in order for the facilitators to

debrief the PROCESS of engaging with these conversations. What did they notice,

both individually and collectively?

12.30pm 60mins Lunch

1.30pm 60mins Leadership Dialogue: Collaborating across boundaries at VIVA

(10 minutes): Set up: This is a whole group dialogue to discuss how we are currently collaborating across VIVA Energy. The intention is to reflect on everything we have been discussing and exploring over the last day and a half, and more broadly, and to make sense together of where we think our efforts to collaborate are working, and where they aren’t. It is an integrative session, where participants can begin to bring together the learning about culture, identity, leadership, the creative and reactive approaches and the skill development around engaging in more creative conversations. (50 minutes): Process: Facilitators will set up the session by naming its intention and inviting the participants to move into the circle. As senior leaders of VIVA Energy, it is imperative


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they engage with one another at both a content level (task) and a process level (relationship). Questions to lead their dialogue:

1. How do we collaborate across boundaries (functional, organisational, with

partners, customers, stakeholders, each other as leaders) at VIVA Energy?

2. Where do we see highly collaborative behaviours and what is the impact?

3. Where do we see behaviours across VIVA that aren’t collaborative? Why is

that? What is the impact on business performance?

Facilitators will play a role to notice what is occurring at a process level rather than engage with the content. For instance, it might be observed that the Executive Team members are the ones leading the conversation, or the Senior Leaders are looking to the Executive Team to lead. If this is the case, what impact do we think this has on the capacity to collaborate?

2.30pm 30 mins Sense Making (20-30 minutes): Offer participants time to make sense of the conversation as a whole group in whichever way they prefer. This might include journaling, walk/talk in pairs, or small group reflections. Remind them that the conversation about how they collaborate across the organisation might have given them further information about the BASIC ASSUMPTIONS that exist in the VIVA culture, and to note if/how they feel it does.

3pm 15 mins Afternoon Tea

3.30pm 30 mins Cultural experiments at VIVA Energy

(30 minutes): We now have an opportunity to test some of the basic assumptions that we have been workshopping together over the last two days. The intention here is for participants to make a difference on the job in one or two specific ways. You might choose an area where you as a leader feel you might have contributed in a way which is either creative (inspiring, full of purpose and vision, where you feel fully authentic) in order to explore how you might leverage this leadership asset further in influencing the broader culture here at VIVA.


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Alternatively, you might choose an area where you feel as a leader you might have contributed to a dynamic in the VIVA culture where it is reactive. As way of an example, it might be that you can think of instances where you have protected your own self-interest over the alternative where the collective outcomes are served first (self protecting – could present as criticism of others, arrogance, or distance). In the same triads in which you told your personal stories to explore values yesterday, share with one another what you intend on doing back in the context of your role at VIVA to influence the culture, as a ‘cultural experiment’. Some questions to lead your conversations:

1. What basic cultural assumption at VIVA Energy do you want to try and

influence?

2. How do you think you have contributed to this assumption, and how do you

propose you will experiment with a new way of being or doing? (Include in

the themes of collaboration, authenticity and inspiration in your

conversation).

3. What will you do, in what context, and with whom? What do you believe

might be possible by you taking up your role in this different way?

4. What support will you need from the others in your triad in order to observe

what happens, and how you make sense of this experiment, both individually

and together?

Inform participants that TLC group coaching will be offered to each trio after this workshop. Suggest that they use the coaching as a way of building a solid foundation for further meetings/support the trio may undertake before Workshop 4. It might be useful for the triads to establish how they will practically support one another through planning to meet with one another at regular intervals before workshop 4. We will debrief learnings from this and think about what impact, if any, we have had on the VIVA culture through this process.

Capture these

questions on the

whiteboard or

flip chart.

4pm 30 mins Commitments and workshop closure

Next steps (Jan Marshall to provide wording for introduction of the coming impact survey). Set personal goals Invite individuals to set personal goals relating to:


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Leadership, self-development, professional development, energy management, relationships etc. If time: Teachable Point of View What learning would they would like to share back in the workplace? Share the leadership practice of a Teachable POV. Encourage them to divulge their insights. Make it powerful, relevant and personal. Complete online survey form. Public commitments to action. Close program.

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